GOODYEAR TIVO GOOGLE REVIEW

GOODYEAR TIRE AND RUBBER (GT)
Goodyear Tire and Rubber announced a great quarter. This firm has traditionally done very well for several years after a manufacturing recession. This time is no different. The company has announced a refinancing of 3.3 Billion in debt. The savings will be substantial.

TIVO--AAPL
TIVO was up 18% today and up 28% in two days. I am still at a loss in a couple of accounts and just breaking even in my biggest position. Steven Kroll, an analyst who follows the stock, says Apple plans to make a take-over bid.

Over the past couple of years, TWX and CMCSA held talks with TIVO but the Chair was never interested in a sale. Recent developments such as the resignation of the company President suggests the company may be ready to deal.

The last company report showed a nice increase in subscribers. A new box with advanced features has been reviewed by analysts. The first reviews were a bit mixed but the TIVO to Go feature has potential to offer time shifting and place shifting of TV. This is revolutionary. TIVO is in a race against heavily capitalized players to lead the market.

Apple's high stock evaluation gives it the currency to offer "big bucks" for the company. Apple is in great need of a way to capitalize on the popularity of I-tunes. How can Apple get customers to use its Quick-Time media player? The big winners in media will offer consumers a player and media center for music and video. Buying TIVO will not give Apple the content it needs but it will give it the platform to deliver various content over the internet.

Motorola is partnering with Apple to offer an I-tune equipped cell phone. Motorola is a prime competitor of TIVO. A couple of weeks back, I came close to taking my tax loss in TIVO and forgetting about the stock. I held on for several reasons. The day I decided to hold, the stock was down to $3.40 and a popular high tech gadget web site started a TIVO DEATH WATCH. As is usually true, if popular media says death is imminent, it is a good time to buy. My guess is that the rumors are true. A deal may not get done but the parties are probably in serious negotiations. I would be surprised if the stock goes out at less than $7.00. The stock moved $.30 the day before the rumor surfaced.

GOOGLE MOVIES: GONE WITH THE WIND
Bonnie Butler was a spoiled child. She had everything a child could want; too bad Scarlet and Rhett couldn't get along. At the rate Google is adding features, we shall soon have more than we can imagine. It is clearly easy for Google to tweak its search window. Now if one starts a search with "movies:" one can put in an actors name, a movie title, a word, phrase or even a location and quickly get back the answer one seeks. I am sure the movie search drop-down will be added to the next version of the Google Tool bar. If you don't have it, you should down-load it for free.

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The autolink is proving to be neat. When you find a site that mentions a location, you can get a map immediately by clicking on the autolink button. Once you down-load the newest version, future improvements are added automatically. The old ways of doing things are Gone With the Wind.